


Who Needs Jail When You Have a Girl Group?

by tozier



Category: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Coming of Age, F/F, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Road Trips, canon up to the season 3 finale
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-25 17:39:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16665283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tozier/pseuds/tozier
Summary: With Rebecca 26 days into her incarceration, Valencia, Heather and Paula are floundering. In a last-ditch attempt to get her released, they travel to the East Coast, and might accidentally find healing (and themselves) along the way.





	Who Needs Jail When You Have a Girl Group?

**Author's Note:**

> what's up i love all of these characters so much it's a little insane, so here's the tribute to them i've been thinking about for months but finally got up the courage to write (just in time for it to be completely divergent)

“Okay, Heather, you've _got_ to stop.”

“I’m not even doing anything.”

“I know. That’s the problem.”

And as much as it chagrins Heather to admit it, Valencia is right.

It’s been 26 whole days since Rebecca Bunch pled guilty in an orange jumpsuit with her spine straight and her words proud, and was carted away from them all in handcuffs. And, though she’d be loathe to admit it to anyone but the voice in her own head, Heather is… well, she’s depressed. Impressed, and shocked, and heartbroken, and lonely as shit, and depressed.

 _It’s just neuroscience,_ she tells herself, _postpartum depression is nothing to scoff at._ But not even her trusty I’m A Student mask could've prepared her for how _empty_ life is without Rebecca.

And really, when she thinks about it, how could it have? Rebecca Bunch is more than just a woman—she’s a hurricane. She swept through West Covina and tore every life she touched asunder until it was impossible to render it the way it was before her. And Heather means that in the best way possible. Before Rebecca moved into the apartment next door, Heather was anhedonic, allowing life to happen to her and completely fine with never maturing or growing. And then Rebecca came along, gave her a homemade croissant, told Heather she was the coolest girl she’d ever met, and changed her life. Pre-Rebecca, she was a 26-year-old living in her parents’ apartment, allowing them to coddle her, and submitting to her state of… well, depression.

Because Heather _is_ depressed, and has been for a long time. Hurricane Rebecca was a very beautiful storm that ripped through her life, uprooted her from the detached lifestyle she used as a baby blanket—apathy and cynicism as self-defends—and gave her the confidence to get a cool-new job, a cool-new house, a cool-new degree, and cool-new friends. But the truth of the matter is that wherever she goes, there she is; Heather is still depressed now that Rebecca is gone, despite the many changes she made to her life before she was dragged away from them.

Heather just has cool-new friends now to notice when she slips.

“C’mon, let’s go to yoga at the Center. There’s an intermediate class at 2.”

“Don’t want to.”

“Okay, but _I do.”_ Valencia sighs, harshly, and flops down beside Heather on the couch in her and Rebecca’s shared living room, the place she’s barely moved from in twenty-six-whole-days. “Okay, maybe I don’t.”

Valencia sighs again, tips her head back onto the couch and digs her knuckles into her eye sockets. “God, what am I doing here? I haven’t been to my own apartment in, like, two weeks. Beth’s probably pissed.”

“Beth has never been pissed in her life. I don’t think she would even know _how_ to be pissed.” Heather tips her head back as well, and rolls her neck to look at Valencia. “Especially at you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Valencia scoffs, but her eyes widen, not wanting an answer. _Tough shit,_ Heather thinks, and gives her one anyway.

“It means that you and Beth have been doing this weird dance of only-ever-half-dating since you met.” Heather doesn’t say that she knows exactly why, and Valencia needs to cut it the fuck out. She may be blunt, but she’s not rude.

“It’s just…” Valencia sighs for the umpteenth time since she entered the living room four minutes ago (good lord, woman, get a grip), covers her cheeks with her palms and her fingers over her eyes, leaving her mouth free to speak. “I don’t really… remember… who I am… without Rebecca.”

She admits this like pulling teeth, like it’s painful to even say the words aloud, and Heather thinks Valencia is braver than Heather herself could ever be for saying it first—maybe the bravest person she knows. “Me neither.”

Valencia drops her hands to her lap and looks over at Heather warily. “Really?”

“Yeah. It’s like life without Rebecca is foggy, and now that she’s gone for the foreseeable future, it’s like—”

“Like the fog descended again.” Heather nods. Valencia breathes out—it sounds less like a sigh this time and more like acceptance—and curls her body up like a pill bug, tucking it into Heather’s side. Heather allows her to; it must be lonely as hell to spend every night all alone in Rebecca’s California King. At least Heather has Hector.

Well. Sort of.

Because without Rebecca to take care of, Heather and Hector are floundering. Heather just wants to be _alone,_ but apparently that’s too much to ask of her boyfriend. He keeps trying to convince her that this is _normal,_ postpartum depression is common amongst new mothers, and after carrying a child for nine months that she rarely ever sees and losing Rebecca all in one fell swoop, it must be a lot to handle all at once. But Heather is insistent that he’s wrong.

 _Normal? None of this is_ **_normal,_ ** _Hector! My best friend, my_ **_first_ ** _friend, is in jail. Do you not understand what that means for me?_

_No, baby, I don’t. Please help me to understand it._

But Heather barely understands it herself. They're deteriorating all alone in this big house with memories of Rebecca still scattered everywhere, like a shrine dedicated to someone who chose to leave. Hector would tell her that she didn’t leave, she's just trying to atone, and she thinks this is the best way to do it. But with Valencia alternating between crying herself to sleep in Rebecca’s bed, working herself to the bone, and weeping whenever she finds something with the essence of Rebecca like some grieving housewife (a half-full glass of water beside the bed, a cheerio on the floor of her bedroom, a clump of dyed-black hair in her brush), and barely ever seeing Paula, it truly feels like Rebecca is gone.

And the thing is, if Heather were honest with herself, she’d admit that Hector has been _great_ through all this. Better than Heather could’ve ever assumed he’d be if she ever fell into a pit of despair like she was before she met him. Which, to Hector’s credit, was probably rude of Heather to assume; he’s a nice, smart guy, and the two of them do get along. Hector is a family-oriented kind of dude, a caretaker more than Heather ever will be, and living with Heather (and Valencia, and not-anymore-Rebecca) has proven his softness in spades. He would warn Heather when he saw Rebecca isolating or self-destructing, would pick up her perscriptions and cook _carnitas_ for her when she was too depressed to make meals for herself, and he's been trying to do the same for Heather now that she's showing similar signs of her own illness. He has no issue living with only women, and Heather has never once been nervous about him hitting on any of her various roommates; it was never even a thought in her head. He’s a good person, and Heather should’ve assumed he’d understand, especially with how well he treated Rebecca before she was incarcerated.

Her refusing to let anyone care for her has been taking its toll on Hector, and she sees it, but there’s nothing she can do about it. This is how it has to be, she tells herself. I’m fine, she tells herself. Nothing to worry about, she tells Valencia when she realizes Heather hasn’t left the house in four days. She’s fine. Absolutely, positively _fine._

But that’s the thing—for all Heather knows about how brains function, all that knowledge has never accounted for feelings. She took a low-low dose of Paxil for years, but she weened herself off of it a few months after meeting Rebecca; she didn't feel like she needed it anymore. But she's in the same place she was when she talked to her primary about her anhedonia at age 19, and she's scared of that. She knows there's a gradient to all mental illnesses, a spectrum of intensities, but she thought she'd been cured. She thought she was better. It doesn't help that she's constantly misjudging people, finding herself shocked by their words and actions. _(I plead responsible, I mean, guilty;_ Greg and Rebecca never truly ever coming to fruition like she assumed they would; Valencia’s Obvious, Real, Actual Feelings for Rebecca; Paula throwing herself headfirst into her family since Rebecca’s incarceration; Hector’s overwhelming empathy for her in her current state; her own depression returning from war.)

And maybe that’s the problem with Heather Davis: she is always assuming she knows how everyone feels, but refuses to ever take a good look at herself for fear of what she might find.

Maybe she and Rebecca have far more similarities than anyone gives them credit for. Maybe Heather, too, thought love could save her, just in a different manner than Rebecca. Maybe it’s time to start really looking at herself. Maybe it's time for a change.

The front door slams open, and Heather knows it isn’t Hector before whowever it is even steps foot through the threshold; Hector is always incredibly careful coming into the house these days, knowing Heather usually takes naps on the couch. No, it’s Paula Proctor, and she looks determined.

“Get up,” she says the moment she sees them curled up on the couch, bustling over and removing the blanket Valencia had pulled around herself. Valencia lets out a long whine and buries her face into Heather’s chest, digging her bony elbows and knees even further into Heather’s body. When was the last time Valencia ate? Hector cooked a big pot of  _pozole_ a few days ago, but neither her nor Valencia have warmed any of it up. There's a desecrated bag of potato chips beside the couch, but she knows Valencia doesn't eat that stuff. She'd rather starve herself than ever touch something that greasy. Maybe she  _has_ been starving herself. Christ, Heather really needs to come back down to earth. “No," Paula says, "it's the middle of the day, get up. C’mon, guys, it’s been nearly a month and you’ve barely left the house.”

“Neither have you,” Heather says, voice flat and emotionless, like it had been the day she met Rebecca and for many years prior. Paula looks at her like she’s seen a ghost. Maybe she has—whoever Heather thought was her former self, coming out into the light. Heather wishes she cared. Caring is so exhausting—she has no idea how Rebecca survived it.

“Heather,” Paula sighs. She sits on the coffee table, resting her elbows on her knees with her hands clasped together. “You’re right.” Silence. Paula hangs her head, and lets out a hollow little laugh. “I know you are. I’ve gone to work maybe twice in the past two weeks; the new guy managing Nathaniel barely knows my name. Even _Darryl_ came over with his kids to ‘check in’.” Paula grimaces. “I’m Mama Paula. I should be doing the checking in.”

“There’s no should,” Valencia says, voice quiet and pensive, shifting a little so she can sit up and look at her while still mostly curled up into Heather side. “We’re all just trying to deal as best we can.”

There's a brief silence before Paula quietly admits, “I lied to you.” Her eyes flicker up self-consciously and then back down before any of them can register each other’s emotions. Valencia moves, sitting up straighter at the sound of shame in Paula's voice. “I haven’t been spending time with my boys. I’ve barely seen them at all. I’ve just been… _throwing_ myself into Rebecca’s case. Trying desperately to find a loophole, some evidence that could possibly get her out.”

“And have you found any?” Valencia asks, shifting again so she isn’t touching Heather at all, voice vibrating with excitement. Paula shakes her head.

“No. Not really." Valencia deflates, and Paula shoots her that candid, pitying smile she gets whenever Valencia expresses anything emotional. "Trent still hasn’t woken up, so his account of the situation is moot until we can get a statement out of him. All I’ve got is a call out to Trent’s old professor at Yale who has a restraining order against him. Might be a lead, if the professor would ever call me back.”

“Well, then let’s go to him!” Valencia smiles, chipper at the idea of finally having a reason to move. Paula stares at her, dumbfounded.

“Valencia, honey, Yale is in Connecticut.”

“I know,” she scoffs.

“And we are in California.”

 _“I know,”_ she says, annoyed to ever be considered anything like she was when her only descriptor was Josh’s Vapid Girlfriend. “We all have cars.”

“And jobs,” Heather adds skeptically.

“Your job is mostly management and assignment based,” Valencia says, turning to Heather with a light in her eyes that hasn’t been there since the last time they were all together (all of them, including Rebecca). “As is mine. And I’m sure Darryl and your new boss will understand, Paula. It’s for business. Doing recon. Don’t lawyers do that?”

“Not my kind, sweetie. I’m studying to become a real estate lawyer, and even if I were doing criminal law, it’s not really…” Paula looks around, her eyes catching on the big fish hung up on the wall. She smiles, but only just, a lonely and bare thing. “Kosher.”

“Well, who cares?!” Valencia cries, standing up and folding the blanket that Paula had put on the floor between them. “Nathaniel doesn’t give a crap about Rebecca, that much is certain with how angry and cruel he’s been to you when you _do_ show up. He’s an asshole anyway, he's not gonna do anything to help. And Darryl is busy with Hebby. So it's up to us!” Valencia begins picking at the blanket in her hands, now folded up neatly. She looks small and scared in a way she hasn’t since Heather saw her at the Donut Stand with Rebecca over a year ago. “We have to do something. _Please.”_

Heather closes her eyes, and steels herself for what she’s about to do. God, everything is so much harder when you barely want to exist at all. She doesn’t know how Rebecca can do this all the time, live and breathe and try while feeling so damned tired. Heather might have to take back Valencia’s title as The Bravest Person She Knows. “Okay.”

“What?” Paula asks, more of a gasp than anything else. “Even you, Heather?”

“Yeah. V’s right; especially considering it’s still another 18 days until we can all visit. Paula, you said she's okay when you visited her?"

"Well, as okay as one can be," Paula says, frowning. "She's scared. She's afraid she might've made a mistake. Jail isn't a vacation; I don't think she really thought it through. I'm doing everything I can, but I'm not even a certified attorney yet. There isn't much I can do except be the only one allowed to visit. Give her company."

"And we're glad you can, Paula," Heather says, reaching out to squeeze her hand. "But, V, we’re no help to Rebecca moping around in this,” she waves her hand, gesturing to the house around them, “tomb.”

“Rebecca isn’t dead,” Valencia snaps, voice wobbling dangerously with untapped rage.

Heather nods, “I know she’s not. But it _is_ going to be a while before she comes back.” Valencia deflates, the rage seeping out of her as quickly as it came. Heather turns back to Paula. “Unless we can do something about it.”

“It’s unethical,” Paula says, but she’s smiling. “Not our job.”

“Since when does Paula Proctor, Almost-Esquire, care about what’s ethical or not?” Heather smiles back, and looks up to Valencia who is still picking at the blanket nervously.

“Are we really doing this?”

Heather shrugs and stands up for the first time in a long, long time. She stretches and her bones crack. She shakes herself out and takes the blanket from Valencia’s hands, placing it down on the couch where they had both been laying for weeks. “What have we got to lose?”

**Author's Note:**

> here's [other places to find me](http://rebecca.carrd.co).


End file.
